Remembrance Day

MIDI Bugle by Neville Young

On June 28, 1914, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian and Hungarian thrones, was assassinated. Thanks to a complex web of alliances, and a month of failed negotiations, the First World War began in August 1914. Britain declared war on Germany on the 4th. This meant that Canada, still considered part of the British empire, was also at war automatically. By the end of the war, though, Canada had earned the right to sign the peace treaty as an independent nation. Unfortunately, this "birth of a nation" came at a cost. More than 60,000 Canadian soldiers were dead. NEVER AGAIN!


John McCrae: In Flanders Fields (1915)

Canadian poet John McCrae was a medical officer in both the Boer War and World War I. A year into the latter war he published in Punch magazine, on December 8, 1915, the sole work by which he would be remembered. This sonnet commemorates the deaths of thousands of young men who died in Flanders during the grueling battles there. It created a great sensation, and was used widely as a recruiting tool, inspiring other young men to join the Army. Legend has it that he was inspired by seeing the blood-red poppies blooming in the fields where many friends had died. In 1918 McCrae died at the age of 40, in the way most men died during that war, not from a bullet or bomb, but from disease: pneumonia, in his case.

During the war people interpreted the poem primarily as a pro-war poem although it is clearly an anti-war poem.


In Flanders fields the poppies blow (1)
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

In memory of my Grandfather, who was of the lucky ones to have come home from this terrible war and for all that bare the scars.

"Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF).


British War Medal 

Victory Medal 

This a copy of my Grandpa Gib Bells World War I military record as part of the Canadian Expenditionary Force from 1916-1919. 


Later,
Kenaz